Will Schwalbe Quote
A 'C' means you've done average work. There's nothing shameful about being average. You didn't fail. You didn't even come close. You did what you were supposed to do. Cheerfully accepting the C means that you recognize there's such a thing as a B and an A and that you know you fell short of both; you can take pride in your place n the middle of the pack but still appreciate that there's room to grow.Mediocrity isn't crass or shoddy or vulgar. It's, well, mediocre. There's nothing wrong with it. It's not bad. When you embrace mediocrity, you embrace humility—you learn to see that no matter how good you are at something, the world probably has people who are more talented at it than you. You can strive to learn from people who do things better, or you can at least appreciate them—even if you don't want to be them. By definition, most of us are mediocre, and everyone is mediocre at something.It's often just a matter of perspective.
A 'C' means you've done average work. There's nothing shameful about being average. You didn't fail. You didn't even come close. You did what you were supposed to do. Cheerfully accepting the C means that you recognize there's such a thing as a B and an A and that you know you fell short of both; you can take pride in your place n the middle of the pack but still appreciate that there's room to grow.Mediocrity isn't crass or shoddy or vulgar. It's, well, mediocre. There's nothing wrong with it. It's not bad. When you embrace mediocrity, you embrace humility—you learn to see that no matter how good you are at something, the world probably has people who are more talented at it than you. You can strive to learn from people who do things better, or you can at least appreciate them—even if you don't want to be them. By definition, most of us are mediocre, and everyone is mediocre at something.It's often just a matter of perspective.
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About Will Schwalbe
His first book, SEND: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better, was co-written with David Shipley, and was published by Penguin Random House in 2010. The book was reviewed by Dave Barry in The New York Times, became a business bestseller and was included in an interview with Schwalbe on The Colbert Report in June 2007.
The End of Your Life Book Club, which described Schwalbe's relationship with his mother Mary Anne Schwalbe through books before her death, was published by Knopf in 2012, and spent more than four months on the New York Times Bestseller List. It was widely reviewed by outlets such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Chicago Reader, The New Yorker, Bookpage, and Entertainment Weekly.
As a journalist, he has written for various publications, including The New York Times and South China Morning Post.
Books for Living was published in December 2016 by Knopf, and consists of essays about 26 different books that affected the author's life. The Boston Globe described it as a "natural follow-on" to his previous book. Among the books described by Schwalbe include, Homer's The Odyssey, Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, E. B. White's Stuart Little and Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train.
His sister, Nina Schwalbe, is an American public health researcher.